McDermott, 47, was apprehensive at first, but he agreed that it was an important part of the healing process. "I'm scared to hear Tori's true feelings towards me," he admitted. "I'm so full of self-loathing to begin with, and now, I did what I did, and now that's at an ultimate high. Inside I feel like a rotten, twisted tree that all the leaves are dead off of." Hearing that, Spelling was fraught with fear. "Honestly, I've already shut down because I just feel like I want to protect him. I feel bad," she told Wexler. "I see his face and I feel how anxious he is. I can't express myself because it's gonna make him worse."

"Is it going to make you worse, Dean?" Wexler asked.

"Yeah, it's gonna make it worse," McDermott replied, "but I have to go through it."

"My breakdown, I wanted to disappear," McDermott admitted in a taped confessional. "I didn't want to feel what I was feeling all the time. I just thought, 'This is it. You can't get out of this.' I ruined everything great in my life, and I just thought, 'Tori deserves me to die.'"